‘front’ Seen Menace to Democracy Unless Strong Counteroffensive is Launched

February 25, 1940

NEW YORK (Feb. 23)

A warning that the Christian Front may develop into an “impressive threat to our democracy” unless an “adequate counteroffensive” is organized against it is sounded in the March issue of The Forum magazine.

The issue features an article on the Front by Theodore Irwin, who cites Nazi and Irish Republican Army links uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and describes the growth of the movement in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis and Minnesota.

The arrest of 17 Frontists in Brooklyn on charges of seditious conspiracy against the Government, Irwin asserts, has “undoubtedly dealt the Front a paralyzing body blow” but this” can hardly be considered a knockout.”

Declaring the movement was gaining momentum for a spring campaign and asserting that the greatest aid to the Front was the “absence of a disapproving word from official, authoritative spokesmen of the Catholic church,” Irwin concludes:

“Let the Catholic hierarchy in our cities speak out bluntly against the mongers of anti-Semitism, and it may strike the death blow to the Front. Decisive police enforcement of existing laws against incitement to riot and disturbing the peace would help speed its interment. To dig up the roots, there must be positive education in racial and religious problems, a relentless exposure of the Front’s kinship with Fascist-inclined forces, and, more basically, the reclamation of the social and economic bankrupts who flock to the movement for salvation. Without the execution of an adequate counteroffensive, what has thus far been little more than an outrageous public scandal may conceivably turn into an impressive threat to our democracy.”